· Private foundation
The Farbman Family Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
78% of The Farbman Family Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Jewish Federation Of Metropolitan Detroit, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 3 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2021, the last year The Farbman Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 9 organizations, $19k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2021
- Under $10k13 grants · $9k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FOLDS OF HONOR | $10,000 |
| SARASOTA MUSEUM OF ART | $5,000 |
| DETROIT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY | $1,000 |
| FRONT PORCH MINISTRIES | $1,000 |
| COUNCIL ON ALCOHOLISM AND DRUG ABUSE | $1,000 |
| GREAT LAKES CENTER FOR THE ARTS | $500 |
| FINE ARTS SOCIETY OF SARASOTA | $155 |
| JVS HUMAN SERVICES | $100 |
| CRANBROOK SCHOOLS | $100 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $100 |
| ART CENTER SARASOTA | $75 |
| WESTCOAST BLACK THEATRE TROUPE | $54 |
| WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC | $50 |
| JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MI | $36 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY22–22, $400) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
19 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2021, 10 since wound down; 17 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (too recent to call). Read against FY2021, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 13% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
SARASOTA MEMORIAL HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION INC3× · 2018–2022 · $7k · revenue +183%- BBBEYOND BASICS4× · 2019–2024 · $4k · revenue +297%
- CCCHARLEVOIX CIRCLE OF ARTS2× · 2017–2018 · $3k · revenue +245%
Funded once
- AIAMERICAN ISRAEL EDUCATION FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2018 · $25k · revenue -27%
- PMPERLMAN MUSIC PROGRAMone grant, 2018 · $3k
- RDRAYDER DEN FOOD PANTRY INCone grant, 2020 · $1k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
To collect, display and interpret objects in craft art and design.
The Detroit Historical Society tells Detroit's stories and why they matter through its exhibits, programs, outreach, and the preservation and dissemination of its artifacts and collections.
Inspire awareness, appreciation and passion for michigan's history and stories, culture and environment through the arts.
To promote conditions favorable to job creation and business success in michigan.
Business leaders for michigan is a nonprofit, nonpartisan statewide organization driven by ceos from the state's leading employers, all working toward a shared goal: making michigan a top 10 state for jobs, talent and a thriving economy.…
Business leaders for michigan is a nonprofit, nonpartisan statewide organization driven by ceos from the state's leading employers, all working toward a shared goal: making michigan a top 10 state for jobs, talent and a thriving economy.…
Rochester art center offers the opportunity for all people to understand and value the arts through innovative experiences with contemporary art. through world-class exhibitions and programs, we present a welcoming, integrated, and diverse…
Jewish historical society of michigan shares and celebrates the experiences and contributions of the jewish people, communities and institutions of michigan.
The mission of the jewish museum is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret art and jewish culture. see schedule o for more information.
Our mission is to engage, educate and excite the community by collecting, exhibiting, and preserving works of art for the enjoyment of all. the museum of fine arts, st. petersburg, florida (mfa) is the cultural leader of our community. our…
The jewish fund is organized and operates exclusively for charitable, educational, and religious purposes. the fund's primary activities are: supporting a jewish health care mission in the greater detroit area and michigan; promotion of…
Jewelers of america, the most trusted and influential voice of the jewelry industry, empowers and unites its members through expert guidance and advocacy, driving excellence, integrity, and success in an ever-changing marketplace.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Jewish Federation of Detroit and the most unlike its peers is The Front Porch Ministries. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 37 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
32 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 32 of the 52 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF DETROIT ↗
- Who funds Great Lakes Center for the Arts ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN ISRAEL EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds University of Michigan ↗
- Who funds THE JEWISH FEDERATION OF SARASOTA-MANATEE INC ↗
- Who funds SARASOTA MEMORIAL HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART DETROIT ↗
- Who funds BEYOND BASICS ↗
- Who funds CHARLEVOIX CIRCLE OF ARTS ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE ↗
- Who funds CURE MULTIPLE MYELOMA CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds GESHER HUMAN SERVICES ↗
- Who funds DETROIT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds SANTA BARBARA PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHARLEVOIX VENETIAN FESTIVAL INC ↗
- Who funds ALBERT KAHN LEGACY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE FRONT PORCH MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds GIRLS INCORPORATED OF SARASOTA COUNTY ↗
- Who funds THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CRANBROOK EDUCATIONAL COMMUNITY ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH WOMEN MICHIG ↗
- Who funds ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS ↗
- Who funds LEADER DOGS FOR THE BLIND ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Gulf Coast Community Foundation Inc · The Community Foundation of Sarasota Co Inc · Rochelle Rosenthal Forester and Randolph L Forester Foundation · The Andrea and Lawrence Wolfe Family Foundation · Deroy Testamentary Foundation · William G and Marie Selby Foundation Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization The Farbman Family Foundation funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Safe Place and Rape Crisis Center Inc — 23% of income from government
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Farbman Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Farbman Family Foundation through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.